


Stumbling Endurance

by ForbiddenSeashore



Series: A Shinobi Endures [1]
Category: Naruto
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Anbu Hatake Kakashi, Depression, Gen, Pre-Series, Suicidal Thoughts, Suicide Attempt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-23
Updated: 2017-07-28
Packaged: 2018-11-03 21:34:36
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 12
Words: 13,962
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10975764
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ForbiddenSeashore/pseuds/ForbiddenSeashore
Summary: Kakashi can't do it. He can't join Anbu. He can't even keep going as a shinobi. So he makes the desision not to, and chooses a kunai to help.He gets stopped."This isn’t the first time he’s had an angry Obito shouting, snarling in his face about Kakashi not dying.It’s just the first time it’s happened since the other died."





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This fic is from the perspective of an extremely depressed Kakashi, and has a lot of detailed suicidal thoughts. Please do not read if you might be distressed by this. He has a lot of thoughts about himself and others that are a product of his depression, and not meant to reflect my views on them.  
> I hope you enjoy.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Edited 11/04/18
> 
> Thank you to everybody who has already read, or is about to read this ^^
> 
> Minor edits have been made, mostly just small typos and the like, but also all of the details about Kakashi's "Apartment".  
> Apparently at some point I let myself make assumptions about Kakashi's living arrangements post the death of his father, for some reason thinking that it made sense that Kakashi would do something beneficial for his mental health.  
> In retrospect, I have no idea why I was so foolish.  
> Turns out - according to the anime - that Kakashi was living in the house his father committed suicide in until he left Anbu, and just moved into the kitchen dining room instead.  
> I have photo proof of this.  
> None of this has impacted on the plot, so no re-reading is necessary, but I did want to let people know why the mentions of his accommodation will be different in the sequel ^^

 

 

 

The kunai glints in the dim lighting of his room. Anbu. It was supposed to be a privilege, to be asked to join by your Kage. A true recognition in your ability to be a shinobi first and foremost, to be able to endure the harshest aspects of being a ninja without even flinching, all for the good for your village.

 

Why is it then, that whenever he tries to imagine a new team by his side, he can only remember the blood splattered remains of his old one? That whenever he tries to imagine taking a mission, all he can see is himself freezing again and again, leaving his team mates to fall around him, only this time with no Gai to swoop in at the last minute?

 

He can’t do it. He knows this completely, like he knows the distance between one branch and the next; knows exactly where that next step would lead. They would die. All of them, those team mates he would be supposed to be able to support would die. Because of him.

 

Wouldn’t it be better if he weren’t even part of the team? If they weren’t trying to rely on him in the first place then he couldn’t let them down. It stands to reason. They would be safe. They wouldn’t have to attempt to work with a useless failure of a shinobi who can’t even protect his friends, who is always worse than scum, no matter how hard he tries. They would be safe.

 

He lifts the kunai contemplatively. Not the stomach. He knows exactly how unpleasant it is to find a body that’s had that done to it, and besides, there’s no point trying to reclaim honour that he’s never had.

 

There are so many places he could choose, so many ways to leave more or less of a mess behind, so many almost gentle suggestions from the book, but by this point he is done with thinking and planning. Just done.

 

The throat then.

 

An eternal silencing of the screams he refuses to give voice to.

 

Fitting.

 

Dreamily, he lifts the kunai-

 

“No!”

 

It’s a rough snarl, causing what little was left of his thoughts to come skidding to a halt, the same moment he feels two hands grab him, one on his wrist and one on his throat, both being used to slam him back into his apartment wall with a force that makes Kakashi blink, head twisted to look at the figure crouched over him.

 

“You don’t get to do that, Kakashi” the growl comes again, bitten out from behind an orange mask with black swirls on it.

 

For a brief second Kakashi’s brain leaps into action.

 

There is a stranger in his apartment.

 

It shouldn’t be possible for anyone below jounin rank to get the drop on Kakashi in his own apartment, so the fact that there is someone here, now, an unrecognised shinobi wearing a mask, but no indicator of village loyalty, is a threat. Kakashi is a shinobi, it is his job to deal with threats.

 

Instinctively, he starts planning his escape, thinking of all the ways of taking this unknown assailant down and warning Minato Sensei when he finally looks into the one eye visible through the mask, listens to what the attacker is snarling, and relaxes.

 

“You are not allowed to die yet, Bakashi. I won’t allow it.”

 

Ah.

 

As unfamiliar as the level of rage in both the voice and eye are, and even the colouring of the eye itself, they are so very easily recognisable.

 

Of course.

 

This isn’t the first time he’s experienced that combination before, in the middle of a long and grumpy rant about how Kakashi was totally “stealing his kills” for “no reason”, and how he’s just “totally doing it to look cool in front of Rin”, how he’s “not allowed to die yet” just because he’s an “over-reaching arsehole who can’t help but show off”, and that one day Rin and Obito “won’t even be around” to “save” him when he does “fuck up”, which he “will totally do, so ha, take that, Bakashi”

 

Jokes on him, Kakashi guesses. They were both there after all. At least the first time, anyway.

 

So this isn’t the first time he’s had an angry Obito shouting, snarling in his face about Kakashi not dying.

 

It’s just the first time it’s happened since the other died.

 

Kakashi lets himself relax into the hold a little. After all, why not.  He’s seen Rin over and over again recently, sometime whole, alive and smiling, and sometimes...not. Mostly not.

 

So it makes sense that Obito would show up now.

 

Even if he is whole, bearing no open wounds from the rocks that Kakashi knows killed him, but instead filled with a rage that his real self could never have known. Not Obito, who cared and cared and smiled regardless.

 

Kakashi killed Rin.

 

Of course even this fucked up, mask wearing, angry ghost of that once bright and cheerful boy doesn’t think Kakashi is allowed to have a reprieve. He killed Rin. He broke the only promise he ever made to the boy, broke it then stamped on it. Not even Obito would ever forgive that. Should ever forgive that.

 

Kakashi lets go of the kunai that had been clenched in his pinned hand, vaguely registering the thump when it lands as he resigns himself to continuing on, his own dark eye staring at the twin of the one Kakashi keeps hidden, watching and waiting for his judgement. For his retribution.

 

He killed Rin.

 

Even as he waits, he’s aware of a small part of his brain ticking the box labelled “multi-sensory hallucinations”, adding up as it always does all the ways that Kakashi fails at being the effective weapon he should be. But that’s ok. He started ticking those boxes years ago. He knows how to ignore them.

 

All that he can really focus on is how real this feels. How real Obito looks, despite being that little bit taller and more muscular than he ever got a chance to be in life.

 

So he waits.

 

And after what could be seconds, minutes, or hours –and a shinobi really should be able to keep track of time, so guess that’s another tick in the “failed weapon” list- of Kakashi being glared at, Obito’s eye shifts slightly, confusion mixing into the rage.

 

“What the fuck, Bakashi. Seriously. Get your shit together.”

 

It’s punctuated with a brief shake of the hand around Kakashi’s throat and for a mad second laughter tries to echo in the emptiness in his chest, so similar to nin-dog’s scolding of its pups is the gesture.

 

The eye narrows again, so maybe the hysteria wasn’t quite as hidden as he’d thought- but then this is his own mind torturing him, of course he can’t hide anything- and the mask that had moved fractionally away from Kakashi’s moves back in with a snarl.

 

“I mean it Bakashi. You. Do not. Deserve. Your death yet. So get your shit together, _shinobi_.” With that last utterance the hand around Kakashi’s neck gives one last shake, slamming his head into the wall harder than before and obscuring what little of Obito is visible with white fireworks, before everything slips gently into the relief of darkness. Finally.

 

 

 

xxx

 

 

 

If waking up is a disappointment, Kakashi ignores it. Like always. He’s a shinobi. Shinobi endure, even as they launch into wakefulness still fully dressed on their floor, hands still dripping from their team-mates’ blood.

 

So he gets up, and continues his morning routine as normal, as if he hadn’t come so close to breaking that last tenet of being a shinobi the very night before. As if he weren’t so very fucked up that the only reason his tired brain could come up with to keep going was a hallucination of Obito, telling him he didn’t even deserve death.

 

And he was right. Death would be peaceful. Death would mean leaving everyone else behind to suffer instead. He didn’t deserve that peace.

 

Shinobi endure.

 

So he would endure.

 

He is slightly puzzled when it comes to putting away the evidence of the night before. He remembers – or at least, he thought he remembered – the sound of the side of the kunai hitting the ground next to where he ended up passing out due to what was presumably the lingering effects of exhaustion.

 

There’s no kunai on the floor.

 

There is a scratch. A small scratch, one as likely to come from, say, the edge of a kunai as it is the day to day wear and tear of living, so he puts it from his mind.

 

Just one more part of the hallucination after all then.

 

Lovely.

 

Bet you’re so glad you saved this shinobi now, Obito, huh? See how much he deserves this gift of yours?

 

Kakashi fights the urge to resume scrubbing his hands, and goes to shower instead. The blood on his hands would make the kitchen sink overflow this morning, and he has work to do. Today he starts ANBU.


	2. Chapter 2

Anbu is….exhausting. He has learned his lesson, and will not fall apart in the field again.

 

He will not, he will not, he will not.

 

So instead he kills Rin. Over and over again. Time after time after time until his hands are so covered in her blood that he can’t believe people don’t flinch from him in public, can’t believe that blood dripping from him doesn’t splash onto anybody. Not even onto Gai, so repeatedly determined to talk to him. But it doesn’t. Not yet, anyway.

 

So when his team start questioning him, start querying his determination to kill each and every one of the enemies in front of him, so that none can ever slip away and hurt someone else instead, it’s almost a relief.

 

But he doesn’t deserve relief.

 

So he kills her again and again and again and again, because that’s the only thing he knows how to do anymore, even when part of him knows that sometimes bringing them in for questioning would be more sensible, really.

 

But every time, it’s Rin, standing there, saying his name. And he kills her.

 

Every. Damn. Time.

 

Sometimes he sits with a kunai out again - one of which is definitely missing, but hey, Kakashi full on hallucinates now, so losing a kunai is hardly a big deal.

 

But he doesn’t lift it, and Obito doesn’t appear.

 

He knows he doesn’t deserve death. It doesn’t surprise him that his mind has decided he doesn’t even deserve Obito reminding him of that anymore.

 

So he just….looks.

 

And he endures.

 

And he feels the blood dripping all the way to his toes.

 

 

 

Xxx

 

 

 

Guard duty is….strange.

 

It makes no sense to Kakashi, not really.

 

Not the guard duty itself, of course he can see the need for that.

 

But…Kakashi being on it. That makes no sense.

 

Kakashi does not guard. He kills. He has proven this so very many times that even enemy shinobi know of him, and fear him. That his own shinobi know of him, and fear him. But that’s fine, that does make sense, because all Kakashi can do is destroy everything he touches, even the bits that are so good, and pure, and smiling. He destroys them.

 

And yet…Sensei, the Hokage himself, has chosen Kakashi to protect the thing most important to him. Something so innocent it hasn’t even had to take a single breath of this stained and filthy world yet.

 

It doesn’t make sense.

 

At first, Kakashi does it whilst living in fear. After a while, the fear turns to a sort of madness, half fear and half the desperate urge for the disaster to finally occur, so at least it will be over, and he won’t have to keep waiting, dripping blood while he goes.

 

But…the months go on steadily, one after the other, and the disaster just… doesn’t happen.

 

The blood stops dripping quite so heavily from his hands.

 

Sometimes, he can hardly even tell it’s there.

 

Sometimes he doesn’t wake with a carefully muffled scream and Rin’s face filling his mind.

 

Sometimes he can even bring himself to interact with Gai, when the blood is barely present on his hands. Gai, who proves himself madder than any other shinobi every day; not through his passionate flames of youth, but through his bizarre failure to realise that Kakashi is just not worth it, no matter how many times Kakashi has to move away so that the flecks don’t splatter him.

 

Sometimes...he lets himself believe that he can exist for more than just killing things. That when he and Gai are sparring, or racing, or having dango-eating competitions, this feeling flickering inside his chest might actually be happiness, even though the idea of him being allowed something like happiness is too bizarre to even think about directly.

 

And then the Kyuubi appears.

 

It should have been a good day.

 

It should have been the best day, two loving parents –and Kakashi knows how loving they are, has seen it- welcoming their new born babe into their family.

 

It should have been the day the almost extinct Uzumaki clan gains its newest member – and the child was always going to be an Uzumaki. Minato Sensei had always been very clear that despite keeping his own last name, he had joined the Uzumaki clan, rather than the other way round. That the once strong clan would grow again.

 

It was not a good day.

 

There was blood, and fear, and death, and Kakashi wasn’t even allowed to be out there fighting, damn it, don’t they know that killing things is all that he’s good for?!

 

But apparently they don’t, because when the seal is finally lowered, and the so called children are finally allowed to help, it’s only to move the bodies. The fighting is over.

 

Sensei is dead. Kushina is dead. And the newest Uzumaki, who was supposed to be the start of the rebirth of a clan, is….alone.

 

Alone, save the monster sealed inside him.

 

And Kakashi…can hardly breathe through the blood that is pouring off him, because damn it he was supposed to be guarding, he was supposed to be helping, he wasn’t supposed to just be sitting back with the other “children” whilst sensei died.

 

It’s not fair.

 

XXX

 

 

 

And it is almost laughable, really, in retrospect, how very easily he nearly gets played. So easily warped in his grief and rage that even Danzo doesn’t see the danger in letting him see a ten year old boy with a technique that shouldn’t exist. So confident that all Kakashi is good for is killing, even if it is his own Kage.

 

And Kakashi doesn’t even blame him. Can hardly believe it himself when he lets go of that powerful rage that was flowing so strongly, so very nearly covering the emptiness below it. Can barely even consider the possibility that rather than seeing Rin, he would see a ten year old boy, eyes wide with fear, whose entire existence had been used to recreate a long dead weapon.

 

So Kakashi lets him live.

 

He stupidly, stupidly thinks that saving one life might redeem even a fragment of the destruction he has caused, thinks it long enough to get through a conversation with the Hokage.

 

The thinking doesn’t last the night.

 

Why should it, after all? What’s so great about life that it having one more prisoner could be anything to feel good about?

 

He kills Rin again that night. Again and again, so that when he finally launches himself from sleep his hands are so stained with blood he can see the trail he leaves dripping down to the floor behind him.

 

He almost kills Gai.

 

Really, truly, almost kills him, breaks just little enough skin that the wound doesn’t begin to bleed before Gai manages to get through to him, because Gai had the audacity to think that Kakashi was human enough to jokingly sneak up on.

 

He didn’t see Gai. He didn’t even see Rin. He …didn’t see anyone. Just the prompt to do what he does very best in the world.

 

When he gets back to his house - to his apartment, damn it, he’d decided, it was an apartment now - he’s barely even consciously thinking of anything. There’s just the horrified awareness of what nearly happened, of what he’d nearly done, running round and round in his head.

 

Gai.

 

He’d nearly killed Gai.

 

Kakashi doesn’t have friends, isn’t human enough for friends, doesn’t deserve them, but the moments of weakness where he lets himself imagine that maybe, just maybe he could have one attachment to somebody still living…it’s always Gai.

 

But Kakashi knows that he doesn’t deserve it. Knew it, even before he so very nearly proved it to the whole of Konoha, and he particularly doesn’t deserve Gai. Gai, who shines so bright with the springtime of youth that Kakashi can barely bring himself to look at him, as it will only illuminate the blood dripping from his own hands.

 

Gai.

 

So he doesn’t really have any thoughts at all when his hand goes to his weapon pouch as he stands in the middle of his apartment, and brings a kunai out, angles it towards his throat, and brings it up.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I aim to update this fic either once or twice a week, depending on how far ahead I stay with writing it. At the moment I have a great big chunk already written, so here you go ^^  
> As you may have notice I am drawing mostly on the anime for this fic, as it is the source that provides the most amount of detail for this part of Kakashi's life. This means that as the fic continues you will get to watch my increasing headache as I try to make sense of all the various conflicting aspects of canon that we are given across the various media, so enjoy.  
> Thank you for all of the support, and please feel free to contact me if you have any queries


	3. Chapter 3

No thoughts in his head means he doesn’t even feel surprised when his face hits the floor, the arm holding his kunai yanked behind his back.

 

He doesn’t feel surprise, but he does…feel grief.

 

Powerful, overwhelming grief and for a second he opens his mouth to beg, before from his periphery he registers the mask so different to ANBU, sharingan standing out vividly, and recognises the futility.

 

Of course.

 

Hallucinations again.

 

Yay.

 

So instead of begging he closes his mouth once more and lets his body relax in to the tatami matt below, and allows himself the luxury of closing his eyes, hoping without any real hope that it will be enough to let the black swallow him up again and give him even the briefest of respites.

 

Instead, he hears a huff of laughter from behind him, just as vicious as the rage from before but somehow more cutting.

 

“Ok, this time I can slightly see where you’re coming from. Almost killing the Kage, Bakashi?” A whistle, just as cutting as the voice, “I did not think you had the balls. Your little attempt on Gai wasn’t a surprise, though. But maybe the fact you didn’t go through with it was. After all, killing friends is what you do, isn’t it? Cold Blooded Kakashi, Friend Killer Kakashi.”

 

The fucked up, twisted ghost of Obito that Kakashi’s brain has decided to torture itself with almost sounds amused.

 

Almost.

 

And then the rage returns, and his voice dips into a snarl again with the threat of it, even as he moves closer to Kakashi’s ear.

 

“But as I already said. You are not. Allowed. To fucking. Die. Ok?”

 

Why.

 

Why, why, why, why, why, why, why.

 

Why can’t Kakashi just rest? Or if not rest, at least not be denied it by such a warped and bitter version of the boy he once knew. Not one who would sound approving of killing the Hokage, his lifelong aim.

 

But his brain is never nice enough to let him see that boy.

 

Sometimes even Kakashi is surprised by his much his own brain hates himself.

 

“Bakashi.” The voice continues, harsh and insistent. “I’m going to need a response this time, Bakashi.”

 

It’s almost impressively cruel, really, this brain of his.

 

He lets out a rough pant of air, almost a vocalisation, and hopes that it’s enough.

 

It’s not. When can he ever, ever do enough?

 

The arm behind him gets twisted further, dragging another exhale from him, this one from the pain.

 

“Bakashi.”

 

His brain even sees fit to add a spice of killing intent to the air at this point, because why the fuck not, and finally Kakashi forces his vocal cords into action, just so that this can stop and he can rest, even if it’s only for a moment, so he doesn’t have to endure Obito dripping with killing intent.

 

“Fine.” He grits out resentfully, before it even occurs that this is his first time actually talking to one of his hallucinations.

 

Hey look, another box to tick.

 

“Fine what?” Obito’s voice retorts, once again taking on a viciously cheerful sing-song tone so unlike anything the real Obito could possibly have made.

 

Kakashi killed Rin though. He deserves it.

 

He drags more air into his lungs for a another response, part of his brain marvelling again at how real the effort feels against the weight of a bulky teen on his back.

 

“Fine,” he drags out, “No dying. Not yet.”

 

“Well damn, it’s almost like you’re a genius or something,” Obito adds as he starts to shift his weight. “I’m keeping this, though. So Don’t. Forget.” And with that Kakashi feels the kunai being tugged from his slack hand, then…nothing. The weight on his back is gone, and Kakashi is once again alone.

 

Except he always was alone, wasn’t he.

 

Because Obito is dead, dead, dead all thanks to Kakashi, without even having had the truth of having had Kakashi’s hand through his heart.

 

Unlike Rin.

 

So slowly Kakashi rolls over, heaves himself up, and heads to the shower.

 

He’s got another mission tomorrow.

 

A shinobi endures.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks so much to everyone who has taken the time to read, kudos or comment, it really is awesome to get such a response ^^  
> Sorry for this chapter being slightly shorter, it was just the best location for a break and the next chapter is longer, so bear with me ^^  
> Thanks again


	4. Chapter 4

The stupid thing is, it’s just an ordinary mission. It’s an ANBU mission, sure, so it’s probably quite lethal by most people’s standards, but by Kakashi’s, it’s…normal.

 

And yet Kakashi fails.

 

There is no freezing up on his behalf, no hallucinations, nothing but the normal, day to day killing that is all that remains of his life.

 

He just fails.

 

Two of his team mates are dead, and the third is being carried in a desperate and futile attempt to get back to Konoha to find whatever antidote the woman needs –and who the fuck doesn’t carry antidotes to their own poison? Did the missing nin not even give shit about their own team mates? - and Kakashi knows it’s his fault.

 

Knows it, even if he can’t pin down his moment of failure, because he knew this would happen. He knew it.

 

This is what happens when Kakashi tries to protect things.

 

The woman in Kakashi’s arms finally stops whimpering from the pain five miles from Konoha.

 

It’s not a good thing.

 

Five fucking miles.

 

He should have been faster.

 

Should have been stronger.

 

Should have been better somehow, because how is it right that Kakashi of all people keeps on going whilst everyone else just keeps on vanishing?

 

He still goes to the hospital first.

 

He can’t even help it, though he knows it’s pointless, knows that the body in his arms has been steadily cooling for those last five miles, and yet.

 

He goes to the hospital.

 

Then he reports to the Hokage.

 

He has to bite down the hysterical laugh that tries to bubble up when it’s announced that, technically, his mission was a success.

 

This doesn’t feel like a success.

 

Living never does.

 

He goes through the rest of the briefing on autopilot, then leaves.

 

He doesn’t head home this time, but instead to an out of the way section of training ground that his nose tells him has been empty for a very long time now.

 

It doesn’t work.

 

His hand has barely even left his fucking kunai pouch this time when his hallucination catches up with him.

 

It was ridiculous to hope that one place might be safer from his mind than others, that any part of his brain truly believes he deserves to rest, and yet he still tried.

 

Once again, there’s a hand pinning his arm behind his back, and another pushing him face first into the nearest tree.

 

“I. Said. No.” There’s no humour to it, not this time, just the wrath he could never link up to grins and orange goggles, except apparently some part of his mind can.

 

It doesn’t matter that this is only in his head. It doesn’t matter that there’s no point in pleading.

 

This time, he can’t help himself.

 

“Please.” He chokes out, hating hating hating himself so very much. He can feel the tears again, spilling out like they do most mornings even as he feels them on one side, Obito’s side, immediately be absorbed by the covering fabric. “Please, please, Obito. Just…let me die.”

 

It’s so choked and muffled that even he can barely make out his own words, but the figure behind him, the hallucination, seems to understand, if the way his voice shifts into what could almost, almost, be mistaken as affection, even as the hands maintain their force.

 

“No, Bakashi, not yet. How could I possibly let you go yet? You’re just too. Much. Fun.”

 

It’s so nearly gentle, and it hurts.

 

Hurts enough for Kakashi to be able to dig up just a little of his training, break the grasp on his wrist and force his body round so he’s facing the other, putting the pain the action caused to one side because it really doesn’t matter.

 

Obito looks calm and amused once more, masked face tilted slightly in curiosity as he meets Kakashi’s wide and desperate eyes.

 

Kakashi just…slumps.

 

He feels his head connect with a shoulder, feels the fabric underneath growing steadily damper and damper, and allows himself to clutch at what he knows isn’t real.

 

Can’t be real.

 

But just for a moment, he can allow himself not to care, to take in the comfort of a person’s warmth in a way he knows he’d be incapable of if this were anybody else.

 

And it’s so fucking sad that the only comfort he’ll allow is from this bitter, twisted, vicious version of what could have been a friend that his mind has concocted.

 

But he lets himself cling, lets his chest hitch and tears flow, and when the body supporting his weight starts shaking with laughter, and a cruel voice lets out a-

 

“Seriously? Wow Bakashi, how fucked up are you?” in a tone that sounds almost honestly marvelling, he just lets himself clutch tighter.

 

It’s the closest to comfort Kakashi will ever deserve, so he takes it.

 

XXX

 

Kakashi doesn’t even bother to question it when eventually the sounds of the forest changes, turning to silence briefly before coming back as the familiar background noise that surrounds his own apartment.

 

He just shifts his grip slightly in an attempt to cling even tighter, vaguely noting as he does that he finally seems to have run out of tears. It’s too much to hope that he’ll run out of blood next.

 

“Right, Bakashi, it’s letting go of Obito time now,” he hears as the chest against his vibrates slightly. He knows the vibration is a standard part of speaking, but the idea of being close enough to anybody to _feel_ their speech is somehow bizarre

 

“Oy,” comes the voice again. “Bakashi. Fucking listen, already.”

 

Buzz goes the chest.

 

There’s a brief pause, then a tutting noise Kakashi is disappointed to only hear.

 

“Fine. You asked for it, then.”

 

And Kakashi blinks.

 

He’s no longer standing, has instead fallen right through the space that only moments ago was warm, barely having time to turn himself mid fall so that he lands propped up on his elbows facing the direction he fell from.

 

Obito is still standing there, head tilted back to regard Kakashi over his shoulder before he steps to the side.

 

His feet had been in Kakashi’s body.

 

That…would probably freak Kakashi out even more if didn’t know that this had to be a hallucination, but even still it’s…strange.

 

So he just lies there, slightly propped up, and stares.

 

“Go the fuck to sleep, Bakashi. You need to take better care of yourself.”

 

Obito sounds…neutral. It’s bizarre. Kakashi understands the rage, the vicious mockery, the insistence that he stay alive to suffer. All of that makes sense. He doesn’t understand this.

 

So when Obito starts to shift, when his body seems to twist in on itself before disappearing, Kakashi just stays staring for a few minutes more.

 

The he gets up to shower.

 

A shinobi endures.

 

He’s still a shinobi.

 

Even without his own mind tearing into him, the loss of which should not feel this unsettling.

 

A shinobi endures.

 

He endures as he scrubs the blood from his body, from his uniform, only his sharingan enhanced memory being able to tell him which splatters were from colleagues and which from enemy.

 

He endures as he lies himself on his futon to sleep, knowing exactly what torment is going to be waiting after those few, brief, glorious moments of darkness.

 

He endures whilst he scrubs her blood from his hands again, whilst he opens cupboards full of food he has no memory of filling, whilst he resupplies himself with another kunai from his stores to replace what is now the third his brain has lost.

 

He endures.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks again to all you lovely people who have been reading, leaving kudos and leaving comments. It is ridiculously awesome to get such positive feedback, and I kind of love you all ^^  
> And as promised, this chapter is longer than the previous one, and I hope the content is still satisfactory.  
> Feel free to get in contact if you have any questions or comments, it's always great and I will answer anything that is not a spoiler ^^


	5. Chapter 5

After a while enduring becomes habit once more.

 

He has a few more slip ups, each time counteracted by an angry, or amused, or completely fucking neutral Obito. Each time followed by another kunai that needs replacing.

 

But he endures.

 

Most of the time he doesn’t even beg his own mind for what he knows he doesn’t deserve, just feels the rough fabric of a gloved hand on his wrist and lets the kunai go.

 

Some part of his mind wonders whether at some point he should shift to using a different weapon, during these moments, so that his kunai stash wouldn’t keep dwindling.

 

But somehow a kunai is the one he reaches for, every time.

 

Somehow one red eye meets his one black every, every time.

 

And sometimes he lets himself lean against the warmth of a body that should have been cold years ago, until his own mind decides it’s time to remind him that hallucinations aren’t real, and he drops to the floor through what felt solid the moment before.

 

And in this fashion years pass.

 

Years, where the only touches he gets come from the scolding presence of medic nin, the oh so careful brush of Gai’s shoulder or hands, the nudges of his nin dogs  and the regular solid warmth of what he knows is just his own fucked up brain.

 

He endures.

 

He grows taller, deadlier, like he really fucking needed to, half the time living off the food that he never has any memory buying, but that never carries any scent but that of the twisted version of a scent once well known, the scent that his brain has decided to apply to the increasingly adult Obito.

 

Every time, the bought food carefully corresponds with recipes he hasn’t cooked in years, since he actually had people to cook for or people who for some reason gave a damn whether or not he was eating.

 

So he cooks, and eats, and sleeps, and scrubs, and kills and kills and kills.

 

And spends hours at a time standing in front of the graves of his team mates who were never forced to grow up.

 

Somehow, he even becomes team leader in the process, and isn’t surprised when that night Obito turns up before Kakashi is even far enough into his apartment to start moving his hand to his pouch, calling out to him with laughter and mockery and taunts about the life expectancy of the poor little Anbu who think that they might actually survive this new promotion.

 

Kakashi has no response to that, so he just keeps walking until he can collapse against the cruel and truthful and warm figure lounging against the wall.

 

And when the so very nearly kind voice croons in his ear that it’s ok, that no matter how many of them die Kakashi will still be alive, because Obito will make sure of it, Kakashi just nods slightly against the warmth, breathing through the spiked mass of hair.

 

It is the truth, after all.

 

He still doesn’t deserve death.

 

When eventually the warmth twists and vanishes, Kakashi can hardly be bothered to stop himself colliding with the wall, but all he’s really running on are instincts, by this point, so he does. Then he gets up, and continues with his routine.

 

XXX

 

It isn’t until he’s in an old laboratory with Kinoe that he feels actual surprise again for the first time in years. Not from the attempted betrayal, that’s just one small hurt on top of many, but at the conversation after taking down what might once have been a snake.

 

Kinoe doesn’t want to die.

 

It probably shouldn’t surprise him, he knows. Not everybody seems to be aware of just what a horrific experience living is, borne out of obligation but nothing else. Not everybody is forced into surviving again and again by their own fucked up minds' taunts.

 

But Kakashi had always thought that he and Kinoe looked at the world in very similar ways, bound by duty, obligation, and the urge to protect others even when a small part of himself is screaming that saving a life isn’t saving anyone, it’s just dooming them to having to endure even more.

 

And yet there Kinoe is. Not wanting to die.

 

So he saves him.

 

He disobeys orders, he tracks him down, he unstraps him from the operating chair, and he doesn’t really mind when the members of Root start getting ready to attack from every direction, because there’s a chance that Kakashi’s death will give enough time for the Hokage to get to Kinoe.

 

Kinoe is valuable. He has the mokutan. The Hokage will come.

 

And then apparently he’s more valuable than Kakashi had realised, because there’s no need to even fight, let alone die. The Hokage arrives.

 

And Kinoe is safe.

 

Still a ninja. Still an ANBU even, so Kakashi isn’t sure why he believes it’s any better, but somehow it is.

 

Kakashi can almost let himself feel hope for him, even though Kinoe will be put on team Ro, on the team where Kakashi causing his death is the most likely.

 

So Kakashi tries to pass that hope on. He smiles, he welcomes him into his team, and he renames him. And he tries to ignore the little flickering voice that points out that somehow, despite all the shit that’s happened, Kinoe, no, Tenzo, is…happy. And that therefore, maybe, maybe, happiness could be possible for him, too, not just in those fleeting moments with Gai.

 

But he killed Rin.

 

He doesn’t deserve happiness.

 

So he just endures.

 

And maybe slightly increases the number of solo missions he takes, the only missions he really feels like he doesn’t have to kill everybody, just in case. Where he can use his sharingan to copy and mimic and even slightly dick about, without worrying about the lives of his team mates being the consequence.

 

So the name Sharingan no Kakashi spreads, the name Copy Nin Kakashi spreads, and the name Friend Killer Kakashi quiets, slightly.

 

But the blood keeps dripping from his hands.

 

Not always heavily, often not to the point he can feel his sandals getting drenched. But always steadily there, nonetheless.

 

And so even though he can bring himself to talk to his team mates, to interact socially with them on occasion, to compete with Gai or – very, very rarely- to join him and his friends for dango…

 

He still kills Rin, over and over again.

 

He still launches himself from sleep, desperately holding back the screams.

 

He still scrubs and scrubs and scrubs at his hands, despite knowing how pointless it is.

 

And his stash of kunai keeps shrinking, no matter how many times he restocks.

 

It’s been so many years by now that it’s just another part of his routine.

 

Go on missions. Fail in one way or another, through action or inaction, the death of team mates at the hands of others, or innocents at his. Go home, or to the forest, or to wherever the fuck he thinks there’s even a chance at a reprieve. Drop the kunai at the insistence of a gloved hand against his wrist.

 

From that point there is some variation once more, but it’s still only variation within a continuing pattern.

 

Sometimes there is rage, from either Obito or him. Sometimes there is laughter. Sometimes there are tears and begging. Sometimes there is a strangely accepting calm from the both of them, resulting either in solitude again, oddly relaxed conversation or – on only a handful of thankfully hard to remember occasions – copious amounts of alcohol.

 

And then there is a vacancy in his team, and in what should have been a fairly standard meeting with the Hokage to discuss who might be a good fit to invite in, the Hokage states a name that Kakashi never saw coming.

 

Uchiha Itachi.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you everybody who has taken the time to read, leave kudos and leave comments, you're all awesome ^^  
> And we are increasingly getting to the point where I desperately attempt to make many different parts of canon adhere to a timeline that actually makes sense, huzzah.  
> Like Kakashi's spreading reputation as the copy nin, despite the fact that all we ever really see him use during his time in anbu are chidori and his doton wall... and also, you know, killing all the witnesses...so I have attempted to explain that briefly up above, but if anyone has any ideas of their own about how that works, please feel free to contact me, I really want to make sense of that tangle XD  
> Also, heads up about updates, you're probably unlikely to get one until next week now, as I am in the middle of a ridiculously busy few months and don't want to steam through my current chapter reserves and have to leave you all hanging for a bit. This means that unless I manage to find the time to get a whole load of writing done you will probably only be getting updates once weekly for a bit, so sorry if that drags out the suspense too much ^^


	6. Chapter 6

He is eleven years old.

 

It’s the piece of information that sticks in his head, going round and round at full volume even whilst his body is continuing to discuss his merits with the Hokage.

 

Eleven years old.

 

Yes, he’s a genius. Yes, he’s already a chunin. Yes, he already has a damn kill count that most fresh chunin can’t boast.

 

But he’s eleven years old, and Kakashi kind of wants to scream it in the old man’s face.

 

Even Kakashi had waited a few more years before fucking himself up badly enough that Anbu was an acceptable place for him.

 

Eleven.

 

As soon as it is acceptable to leave the meeting, he doesn’t even bother trying to be subtle.

 

He takes the rooftops straight back to his apartment, hand dipping into his pouch even as he opens the damn door.

 

It’s as far as he gets before he’s spun around, the front of his body slammed into the other half of the sliding door.

 

Kakashi desperately tries to struggle, to fight back enough to gain a few precious seconds – he’s an Anbu captain, seconds would be more than enough – but all of his blows go through the man like he’s nothing but air, and his previously unpinned hand is grabbed from where it had been scrambling to connect with anywhere and joins the other at the small of his back.

 

He keeps on with the frantic defence for a while longer regardless before finally succumbing and sagging gracelessly against the wall, eyes clenched shut.

 

“He’s eleven years old.” It’s the only thing he can even think to say, not even in a scream but in a choked, desperate whimper. He doesn’t need to scream here. It wouldn’t matter either way.

 

“Aw, Bakashi,” comes the lilting response, viscously cheerful in a way that only this warped and twisted version of Obito can manage. “You’re not trying to tell me he’s a child now, are you? How much blood was dripping from your hands by that age, hm? How far off were you from putting your hand all the way through your team-mates chest? Age has nothing to do with innocence, even if such a ridiculous concept managed to exist in this world in the first place. Even your cute little kohai managed to avoid it. We’re shinobi, Bakashi. We sold our souls the moment we graduated.”

 

“He’s eleven, Obito, he is still an innocent, there are so many horrors he can’t even imagine. And Anbu would rip that from him. Don’t make me watch that. Please don’t make me watch.” It’s a rough, unsteady tumble of words, but he means it. Desperately.

 

A far too familiar chuckle sounds in his ear.

 

“See, I could just respond with what roughly boils down to “tough shit”, but I’m feeling nice today, _Bakashi_. So instead I’ll just ask what the fuck an eleven year old would have to do to get invited into Anbu in the first place. Some people are just born fucked up, and do you even know for sure who exactly you’re defending? He’s an Uchiha, Bakashi. We both know what that can mean.”

 

And Kakashi’s breath freezes in his lungs.

 

He wants to be able to stand firm on this point, he wants to be able to shout and rage and insist that the other man is wrong.

 

But he’s lived through war. He has seen far too many pre-pubescent hands dripping with the blood of their enemies or team-mates or sometimes both, because children’s brains don’t have the years of defences that adult brains do, built up steadily across the years from wound after wound. Sometimes they just splinter instead.

 

Even the Uchiha accusation isn’t without that seed of truth. There have been many, many Uchiha, all kinds of ages, who have come back from missions a little bit…wrong. Sometimes that wrongness would get turned outwards, sometimes inwards. But it would be so very noticeable, either way.

 

Then suddenly they would be gone, and the requests from the jail for food rations would go up by one.

 

Kakashi couldn’t blame those lost Uchiha if he tried.

 

Sometimes the perfect recall of the sharingan digs the knife of those internal hurts just a little bit deeper than can ever truly be bearable.

 

Kakashi understands the urge to blame the world for those pains.

 

He just knows the truth.

 

There’s no point blaming the world for his pains.

 

They’re his fault.

 

Always his fault.

 

He isn’t aware of himself making any noise or movement to signal this thought process, but suddenly the arms gripping his loosen, and Obito takes enough steps back for Kakashi to turn and collapse back against the wall through his own choice.

 

Obito still looks a little bit like he’s having the time of his life, but that’s no real surprise.

 

Kakashi hurts.

 

“Either that, anyway, or something much more interesting is going on,” is Obito’s last glib comment, before he starts to swirl together and vanish like he’d never been there at all.

 

Which he hadn’t been, or course.

 

A shinobi endures.

 

What’s one more stain of stolen innocence on his conscience, anyway.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you again to everybody who has taken the time to read, leave kudos or comment, every one of you brings a smile to my face ^^  
> Apologies for this being a slightly shorter chapter again, especially as I'm still doing once a week updates for a little bit longer, but it was the place where the break fit best  
> Also, we're now getting to the point where I'm taking a lot of information from Itachi's backstory books, although I generally go with the anime in any areas that clash. Mostly just for consistency, really, even though there a few bits that make So Much More Sense.  
> ...And some bits that still don't really make sense, but hopefully I'll be successful in minimising those ^^  
> Once again, thank you for your time, I hope you're still enjoying this ^^


	7. Chapter 7

Uchiha Itachi is not what Kakashi expected, especially not after Obito’s version of a pep talk. He keeps expecting either a merciless, barely controlled serial killer, or a broken child with wide eyes who hates the role he’s been forced into.

 

But Itachi is surprisingly…normal.

 

Kakashi might be the only one who thinks that, though.

 

The boy is terrifyingly good at his job, clearly deserving of the title of “prodigy”, and he does seem to have very little problem with killing, but…he also clearly kills for duty, not pleasure. He seems honestly happy whenever he gets the chance to protect someone, and every time he sees his little brother, even if it’s in the middle of having to spy on his own damn clan, he just…lights up.

 

It’s strange.

 

And in some ways it’s more painful than the alternatives. All that it really means, when it comes down to it, is that Kakashi is going to watch as that remaining light gets taken away. Doused from having to perform duty after duty.

 

And as it becomes increasing clear that the main reason Itachi’s there is to aid the investigation into his own clan, Kakashi knows that dousing is what will happen.

 

There is no way that this can end without misery and pain and Kakashi just doesn’t. Want. To see it.

 

But he doesn’t really get a choice in that, hasn’t in years.

 

So he endures.

 

He even manages to endure watching Gai realise just who Kakashi is, just what he does on a day to day basis, and that being able to let a child kill defeated enemies is a part of that.

 

He thinks he might have even been able to endure enough by now to resist the siren song of a kunai post mission, even had Gai not approached him later that day, after the mission was completed.

 

Who the fuck even is Maito Gai, anyway? How does he stay so true to himself and earnest, and yet somehow still not see that Kakashi is nothing but scum?

 

Worse than scum.

 

Although it has to be said, getting to watch Itachi hero-worshipping Gai had been pretty damn funny.

 

And somehow right, as well. Far too few people really understand Gai, dismissing him in much the same way they did Gai’s father, for much the same reasons.

 

But even if Gai weren’t one of Konoha’s top jounins, even if he had stayed a genin like his father, or never even got into the academy in the first place, Gai would still be worth all the hero-worshipping in the world.

 

Just because of who he is.

 

So, faced with a future Kakashi knows will be filled with pain after pain after pain, Kakashi endures.

 

Even if he only endures because every time he falters his kunai is ripped from his grip, he endures.

 

After all, Obito’s just a fucked up hallucination of a boy who died long ago.

 

He’s just Kakashi’s brain forcing him to continue enduring in the only way he can.

 

So he restocks his kunai, and endures.

 

He endures and he endures, until one day he looks at the date and realises he’s been in Anbu for nine years.

 

That’s thrice the time Rin or Obito ever got to wear their headbands for.

 

And then the kunai gets taken away, again, and he continues enduring.

 

He keeps enduring until suddenly one evening, just as he is starting to eat, sitting at his table in perfect seiza form, Obito appears in front of him without any warning.

 

Kakashi twitches slightly, but ignores the instinct to pull up his mask. There really isn’t any point.

 

A few years ago Kakashi had got back from a particularly demanding mission and had been going about his normal post mission routine. It wasn’t until he was in the shower that he had realised quite how much of the civilian families’ blood still dripped from him.

 

No witnesses, the brief had said.

 

They were witnesses.

 

He was a shinobi.

 

It wasn’t until he was desperately attempting to reclaim the kunai from Obito that he even realised he’d moved from beneath the water, so sudden and so strong the urge to stop had been.

 

Obito had refused to make the rest of himself tangible until his hands had finished tying a towel around Kakashi’s waist, even as Kakashi had tried to target the hands themselves. Kakashi had fought back against being disarmed, his attempts at hitting and kicking slowly turning into struggles to find any part of the other man that he could cling on to in his anguish.

 

Any part he could cling on to of what he knew was a hallucination.

 

He knew that the man wasn’t there, couldn’t possibly be there.

 

But Kakashi had been able to feel so much warmth against his skin that evening, after the towel had finally been secured.

 

When he had finally fallen through the previously tangible Obito to the floor, it was to a litany of distant grumbles. Only the last part, the muttering of fair being fair, made through to Kakashi’s hazy brain.

 

Obito’s mask had been off.

 

Not for long, barely even an entire second before his shape started to twist and vanish around his glare. But it had been off.

 

Kakashi doesn’t want to think about Obito’s far-too-adult face. Doesn’t want to think about the scars that Kakashi can still so clearly see the cause of.

 

So he doesn’t.

 

He puts the thoughts to one side in his mind, regardless of how sharingan-perfect the memory is, no matter how often the image is brought back in full clarity when he looks up at the orange mask.

 

Being without his own mask is only making the associated memory stronger.

 

It hurts.

 

He ignores it.

 

He also ignores the way the already there amusement in Obito’s eye seems to increase at his abortive movement to cover himself.

 

There’s no point. He knows this.

 

He continues eating, twitching an eyebrow up in question.

 

“Hey, Bakashi, can you do me a favour?” the other man asks, jovially.

 

Kakashi maintains his eating speed despite the sudden tension that is trying its hardest to appear between his shoulders.

 

He’s a shinobi. He has more control of his body that his mind.

 

Evidently.

 

Obito doesn’t seem to care that no answer is forthcoming, and continues talking as he manoeuvres to lean his side against the table Kakashi is eating on.

 

“I’m going to be back in a few hours or so, and when I return, no matter what happens, don’t use my name, ok?” Obito’s body seems to almost be buzzing with the excitement of anticipation. “Oh, you should probably try to stay calm, too, but that doesn’t really matter as much. Just don’t say my name. Apart from that, you can do whatever the hell you like.”

 

He says it like it’s a favour, an offhand promise of generosity in the allowed freedom, limited only by this one condition.

 

Kakashi’s arm has stopped moving at some point while Obito was talking. There’s still some food in his mouth, but he doesn’t swallow, doesn’t even chew.

 

He keeps very, very still.

 

He doesn’t break the eye contact.

 

He doesn’t speak.

 

He hardly breathes.

 

He just stays still.

 

“Thanks, Bakashi, see you soon!”

 

And with that Obito twists and vanishes again, leaving Kakashi alone.

 

But he was alone anyway.

 

He knows this.

 

He does.

 

So he just stays very, very still.

 

At some point he manages to swallow his food, to take a few sips of his water and pull his mask back up to where it always sits.

 

And then he stays still once more as the moon outside begins to shine brightly.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Does 20 minutes past it being Monday count as being late in updating?  
> Either way, I apologise, and once again would like to thank everybody who has been reading, leaving kudos and leaving comments, you all make my day ^^  
> I hope you're all enjoying it so far ^^


	8. Chapter 8

 

He’s so still, inside and out, that he doesn’t notice when his solitude is disturbed until the figures approach his table.

 

That should probably worry him, as a Jounin, but it’s ok, they’re just hallucinations.

 

Even if Obito looks more amused than Kakashi has ever seen him before.

 

Even if he’s joined this time by a wide eyed Uchiha Itachi, looking between Kakashi and Obito in confusion, and clearly waiting for one of them to break the ice.

 

Even if the scent of blood on them both is so strong that the metallic edge to it is making his eyes water.

 

It’s all in his head, it’s all in his head, it’s all in his head, it’s all in his head,

 

Just a hallucination, like it has been for the last 10 years.

 

It’s all in his head.

 

It doesn’t matter that Kakashi has been sitting and eating food that had none of his own scent on it until he took it out of the cupboard.

 

It doesn’t matter that the intrusions the Hokage asked him to look into were so often based around routes to his own apartment.

 

It doesn’t matter that every single time he woke up with a hangover after a night of Obito and alcohol there were always, _always_ two damn glasses in the sink, and twice as much alcohol gone as he could possibly have been able to manage.

 

It doesn’t matter that sometimes on missions – very, very occasionally – he’d catch the briefest flicker of Obito’s scent, or of a trace of orange and black between the trees, and the most chakra sensitive Anbu in his squad would always twitch in that same direction. Always.

 

It doesn’t matter that he hasn’t summoned his nin dogs in his house – his _apartment_ \- for years, and has never summoned them after a hallucination without taking a shower first.

 

It doesn’t matter that kunai after kunai vanished from his apartment without a trace, carried away by his hallucination.

 

It doesn’t matter, it doesn’t matter, it doesn’t matter.

 

It’s in his head.

 

It has to be in his head.

 

Because otherwise Obito has been a broken, vicious and powerful missing nin for the last ten years. And Kakashi is a shinobi. An Anbu captain. It would be Kakashi’s duty to report him. It would be Kakashi’s duty to stand up to him, to fight him, to witness the deaths the he knows would then ensue.

 

So many deaths, but none of them would be Kakashi’s.

 

He never gets to die.

 

He just has to witness.

 

But it’s fine.

 

It’s all in his head.

 

All of it.

 

It always has been.

 

Always, always, always.

 

So why is he moving round slightly so that he can face them, can acknowledge them?

 

Why is his voice speaking up now?

 

Why can he hear his own hoarse tones speaking?

 

They’re just hallucinations. He doesn’t need to talk to them.

 

Doesn’t even need to look at them.

 

And yet.

 

“What did you do?”

 

It’s empty, broken, showing hardly a hint of the accusation that should be in his tone.

 

But it’s all he has.

 

Even to the voices in his head.

 

And Obito looks…proud.

 

“Go on Itachi. Tell him what you just did.”

 

He sounds like an overly satisfied parent, forcing his child to speak up about winning in a competition in front of those who had lost.

 

Itachi looks briefly at Obito as if to check the meaning of his words.

 

It’s such a strange gesture on the usually confident Anbu captain prodigy.

 

Kakashi really, really doesn’t want to know what Itachi just did.

 

He wants to run, to hide, to block his ears.

 

He wants to pick up a kunai, wants to use it on himself, on the others, on everybody, just to end their pain.

 

He wants to go to the sink and scrub the blood from his hands.

 

He wants to curl up against the only reliable source of warmth in his life, and cry and cry and cry.

 

But he doesn’t.

 

He just sits.

 

And waits.

 

And when Itachi speaks he wants to turn his chidori on the world.

 

“I killed my clan.”

 

Itachi’s eyes meet Kakashi’s and they stay there, two dark eyes locked against one.

 

“Oh come on Itachi, tell him the whole story. Tell him why.” It’s practically a fucking purr, and Kakashi can’t even bring himself to look at the man.

 

“I killed my clan because otherwise there would have been war. There would have been death and chaos. It would have been the end of peace, and Sasuke would have been in the middle.”

 

“The whole truth, Itachi. Tell him exactly who gave you the choice.”

 

For a second Itachi’s eyes break away from Kakashi’s and dart over to masked man next to him in what is for Itachi a very expressive display of surprise.

 

Kakashi doesn’t follow his gaze. He just keeps his eyes locked on the teen and tries to ignore the screaming that has slowly been rising in volume in his mind.

 

Whatever Itachi sees in that glance is enough for him to steel his nerves, apparently, or deaden them at least, as he continues talking to Kakashi in the tones of one who has just…given up.

 

“Danzo.” Comes the proclamation. “Danzo gave me the choice. It was the only way I could save Sasuke.”

 

The buzzing in Kakashi’s ears is loud enough he looks down to check he hasn’t activated his chidori. But no, there’s no lightning on his hands. Just blood. Always blood.

 

His heartbeat is joining in the raucous noise too, and the pounding and buzzing are becoming deafening.

 

He should move.

 

There’s a reason he should be moving, there is something he needs to do.

 

But all he can hear is the buzz and thump, over and over.

 

It’s a dizzying cacophony that has no connection to the rest of the world.

 

He sits.

 

Vaguely, he is aware of hearing the murmur of speech. The sound of soft footsteps on tatami and the closing of a door.

 

 Obito’s mask is in front of him.

 

Orange and black and red are all that he can see.

 

There’s a voice cutting through the buzzing and the banging.

 

It’s so very gentle, and yet somehow it pierces Kakashi to his very core.

 

“See Bakashi? This is the village you give your loyalty to. The oh-so-great Konohagakure no Sato, champions of honour and teamwork and doing the right thing. And they just manipulated a lost little thirteen year old into slaughtering his own clan just so that they could keep their own hands clean. He killed his family, Bakashi. He struck them down where they stood. All because Konoha told him to. And this is the village you pledge your loyalty to?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I mean, yes it's all depressing, but look, Itachi gets some screen time! Huzzah!  
> Thank you as always to all of you absolutely fabulous people who are reading, leaving kudos and leaving comments, it's awesome ^^  
> I had really hoped to be able to get this chapter out early, but unfortunately time was not in my side, and it's likely that it won't be for the next week either, so the next chapter will probably be monday again.  
> And on a side not, I kind of want to spend a few hours ranting about the conflicting and nonsensical time frames that surround the massacre in canon, but I am really, really resisting the urge.  
> This chapter takes place post massacre, within the one hour that it takes for Anbu to arrive on the scene. That timing is according to Itachi's second book, and seems to make the most sense, so I used it, but I am aware that some of you might not have read the books and therefore might not be aware that that gap exists in some parts of canon, and so thought I should probably explain that ^^.  
> Thanks again to everybody, I really hope you are still enjoying this ^^


	9. Chapter 9

There’s no air in his lungs.

 

There is air in his lungs, there must be, because he’s still sitting upright on his knees, core muscles still able hold him upright past the point where his lungs are convinced they should have given up.

 

But he can’t feel himself breathing.

 

He can only hear the rough gasps echoing too closely to belong to anyone but himself.

 

It hurts.

 

Everything just…hurts.

 

And Obito is still crouched in front of him, looking amused.

 

Not just amused.

 

There’s satisfaction in the relaxed set of his shoulders, his raised chin.

 

It really, really hurts.

 

“Why did you come here?”

 

Why can’t Kakashi feel the rage that he knows is somewhere inside of him? Why are the only things coming out of his mouth these quiet, broken little questions that are rendered completely insignificant compared to the terrifying scale of the events that are unfolding around him?

 

“We needed to get clean somewhere, Bakashi. I’m fairly sure at least someone would have noticed the blood, and that kind of thing does put a pit of a crimp on a good getaway.” He sounds so cheerful. “Besides, I thought you might like to see first-hand just what your village has done.”

 

Kakashi tries so, so hard not to think about the origin of the blood that’s still dripping down the edge of Obito’s mask.

 

Tries so very hard not to remember just how many children there were, that there had to have been, in a clan as large as the Uchiha.

 

“Does the Hokage know?”

 

He manages not to flinch at Obito’s overly dramatic gasp.

 

Just.

 

“The Hokage? Captain Hatake, how could you suggest such a thing? The Hokage is the source of all that is light and bright in this village, he would never stoop as low as tolerating murder. Clearly it’s all Big Bad Danzo taking advantage of the poor innocent Hokage during his time of distraction. After all, what else could it be, hm?”

 

Kakashi should speak up.

 

Not just speak up, he should leap to the defence of Hokage Sama, the one to whom all leaf shinobi have sworn their allegiance.

 

But he just can’t quite do it.

 

He’s loyal to the Hokage, he is, he would give his life to save the man, but… he’s not the Hokage that Kakashi joined Anbu for.

 

He’s the one that Kakashi chose not to kill.

 

The one whose inaction in times of threat Kakashi has had to ignore.

 

Not frequently, but still noticeably, and Danzo of all people was the one to step up and take the burden of decision making upon himself.

 

So as much as Kakashi really, really wants to defend the man, he just… can’t.

 

Not really.

 

Not when the man has failed to defend Konoha.

 

And judging by the amused satisfaction pouring from every inch of Obito, he knows it too.

 

He’s supposed to be loyal, damn it.

 

He’s a shinobi.

 

But he hasn’t bothered lying to Obito for so many years now.

 

So he doesn’t talk.

 

He just continues to sit, silently, and watch the blood of his comrades drip from his friend.

 

And a part of him is amazed that there are still new types of pain that he is capable of feeling.

 

XXX

 

 

 

Eventually they leave. They’ve both used his shower, his soap, his towels, and even though he knows that his Anbu-issued scent-blocking shower gel is exactly the same as the one Itachi has been using for years, his nose still burns slightly when they each walk out of Kakashi’s bathroom smelling like him after what they have just done.

 

The blood splatters from earlier are still there, floating above what is either a spare clean uniform or the results of the best damn cleaning jutsu that Kakashi has ever seen. Either one is possible, regardless of the lack of supplies taken into the bathroom. Itachi is a genius, and an extremely practical one.

 

Kakashi wonders if the genius can see the blood too.

 

He doesn’t think it would surprise him either way.

 

He wants to be able to ignore the boy, but he can’t, even before the Uchiha speaks up.

 

He’d waited for Obito to enter the bathroom in turn, for the sound of the shower to change in the way it does when a body interrupts the flow of water, despite them both knowing how fragile that illusion of privacy really is.

 

“Captain…”

 

It’s mild and uncertain, with the same edge of quiet desperation the boy has had all night.

 

Which is fair enough, Kakashi supposes. It’s been a stressful evening all round.

 

“…I know that I have no right to ask this, particularly after my actions tonight, and how they must seem, but… Please, could you watch Sasuke for me? He will….find this hard.”

 

“Maa, finding your brother killing your whole clan hard to deal with? How surprising”

 

It’s so much easier to pull on the light tones of the friendly captain he had worked so hard to become than it is to do anything else.

 

That doesn’t mean it’s easy. It still hurts. He feels like every word is grating off fragments of his insides and throwing them out into the open air for everybody to see.

 

Even witnessing Itachi’s flinch hurts.

 

But he can’t give any other answer.

 

He can’t watch over someone he can’t even get near.

 

Kakashi won’t drip blood on children. Not even academy brats who think they understand what it is to be a shinobi. What it is to fight, to kill.

 

All he would do is stain them forever.

 

It’s all he ever does.

 

So he can’t promise Itachi. Not about this. No matter how much it hurts and hurts and hurts.

 

So they continue to sit together in silence while Obito takes his time in the shower, and then Kakashi sits in silence while the two Uchiha discuss where to reunite in the morning. Or rather, while Obito instructs, voice pitched just a little lower than his norm in a way that Kakashi hadn’t quite registered earlier, and while Itachi agrees with the slightest of nods.

 

Then they both leave, Itachi through the window and Obito in a swirl centring in what might have been a wink.

 

Or it might have been a blink.

 

Kind of hard to tell, really.

 

And Kakashi finally moves, slowly.

 

He washes up his bowl, takes another quick shower using the same supplies his visitors used, puts on his Anbu uniform and creates a clone to await the call for “rapid response”.

 

And then he henges into Itachi, and leaves.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And it's even (just) on schedule, huzzah!  
> As always thanks to all you absolutely fabulous people who are still reading, leaving kudos and leaving comments, you're awesome ^^  
> I feel like had loads of things I wanted to say about this chapter when I wrote it, but now, weeks later, can't actually think of anything, so I will stick with my usual and say that I hope you have enjoyed it ^^


	10. Chapter 10

 

It’s kind of hilarious how easy it is to avoid being noticed by the rest of Anbu, as he watches them and his clone discover the massacre.

 

Although it’s not like this is anything close to the first time he’s observed them from a distance without their knowing.

 

On the occasions he got caught he would just congratulate them for their vigilance. Or criticise them for their lack of it, depending in part upon his mood but mostly upon the behaviours and actions he saw exhibited whilst they were in ignorance of his presence.

 

They always took it as a training exercise.

 

Or in the early days, as a reminder that he was willing to kill anybody in the line of duty, friend and foe alike, so they should work harder to impress him of their value.

 

But it’s been a while now since that was entirely believed.

 

But neither explanation had been the truth.

 

It was just a response to the restless itch to be doing his duty when he’d already gone above the guideline number of hours on mission that month for the nth time in a row, and was trying not to get himself sent to any kind of counsellor.

 

What with the whole regular hallucinations, and everything.

 

Or worse. With what might have not been hallucinations, and everything.

 

So sometimes he stalked his team.

 

Sometimes he reached for a kunai.

 

Either method seemed equally effective, really.

 

He still thought Anbu should be a little bit more wary, though, considering it was one of their own who had committed this act.

 

He would have to have words with his team later about appropriate levels of caution, even when operating in home territory.

 

Safety is only ever an illusion, after all.

 

It was preferable, focusing his mind on the new training techniques he would torture– he would teach- his teams with, rather than looking too hard at exactly what they were examining.

 

He’d get the memories of it from his clone later, no point having twice the nightmares necessary.

 

So instead he focussed on Danzo.

 

His conversation with the Hokage.

 

His subsequent demotion.

 

His conversation with his Root.

 

His conversation with Itachi.

 

Kakashi was very good at being patient when he had a target to watch.

 

So he waited until after Itachi had taken his leave, until Danzo had finally done the same, and he followed the council member.

 

 

 

XXX

 

 

 

It was easy to pretend to be Itachi. Kakashi had worked with the boy for years, even if the time spent on missions together had drastically reduced since the boy’s promotion.

 

All those missions, not only carrying them out but also planning them, and debriefing afterwards, and Kakashi’s sharingan had been open almost the whole time.

 

He had example after example of Itachi’s movements, fighting styles and his preferred tactics, all saved semi-intentionally.

 

Being able to mimic team-mates was always useful, after all, and not just on missions.

 

Sometimes it was just nice being able to wander around pretending to be someone else.

 

Even if Obito did mock him for it.

 

What did Obito know anyway, about the muttering of your name following you about day after day, judgement, scorn or adoration dripping from their lips in a dizzying cycle? Whether Obito was alive or a hallucination, his reputation had been immortalised long ago in a fall of rocks.

 

Obito hadn’t even wanted his name known by the person he’d killed an entire clan with, so he could fuck off.

 

In the end the job was as easy and simple as the rest of the night had been.

 

Danzo was cocky, and he relied too heavily on his Root guards for his protection.

 

They didn’t so much as twitch until the kunai was pulled out from the back of Danzo’s neck, his body slumping to the ground.

 

“I changed my mind.” Kakashi says in his best impersonation of Itachi’s neutral tones as the Root members stare down at the body in shock.

 

His impression is pretty damn good, it has to be said.

 

He doesn’t even bother to twitch as they rush towards him, broken from their stupor by the sound of his voice.

 

The two pairs stab each other, only a single Root not suffering an immediate killing blow.

 

Kakashi is mimicking exactly how Itachi fights, after all, and he does not fight fair.

 

He always thinks through option after option in his fights, and chooses the one with the greatest likelihood of success. Some called him brutal and ruthless for it, but Kakashi had always thought fondly of the boys’ penchant for efficiency.

 

He kind of regrets that now.

 

But that’s just one more regret to add to the many.

 

The Root shinobi had been under a genjutsu for the last three minutes as they’d travelled through Konoha.

 

It was a particularly vicious little thing originally glimpsed through his sharingan mid-fight a few years ago from an ultimately unsuccessful Kawa nin. It wasn’t very long lasting, and it required a near photographic memory to really use to its full effect, but it was triggered through a one-off noise, and really damn hard to spot once in it. Pain did nothing to break it either, as long as the genjutsu user was able to see it coming and weave it into the illusion.

 

She’d made use of the splash of a nearby suiton, blending her additional water noise into the pre-existing one.

 

Kakashi had been tired, hungry, in pain and so surprised by having to suddenly defend himself from his flank that he’d instinctively used lethal force.

 

He’d had another visit from Obito that night.

 

Another kunai to replace, that night.

 

Kakashi uses the sound of a dog’s bark.

 

In this case, that had occurred whilst Danzo and his guards had walked past the Inuzuka compound.

 

It had intermingled seamlessly.

 

And now they were dead.

 

Most of them, anyway.

 

One is slowly bleeding out where he lies, staring up at what appears to be Uchiha Itachi in horror.

 

He should still live though, if a medic can get to him in time.

 

Somebody needs to be around to report this, after all.

 

Especially if they could verify that Danzo had already been demoted before his death.

 

Kakashi carefully allows his body to make the smallest of stumbles in the way that Itachi does only when truly exhausted, when he’s about 9 seconds away from falling face first to the ground from sheer physical fatigue, and relying solely on chakra to continue moving.

 

He’s saved from the necessity of more theatrics by the voices of approaching civilians growing closer and he has an excuse to depart to depart with a quick shunshin.

 

To the lone remaining Root shinobi, Uchiha Itachi appeared to be pulled apart into a cloud of ravens, each flying away with raucous good cheer.

 

With the genjutsu in place there might have been little overwhelming need for the henge in the first place, but even in home territory and in the dark it was difficult to truly rule out the possibility of spectators, and Kakashi always errs on the side of paranoia.

 

From there it’s no effort at all to find an opportunity to switch with his clone without anyone being any the wiser, and what fraction of a scent trail he hadn’t been entirely unable to hide would then lead whoever might be following it only to and from the scene of what was already being called the Uchiha Massacre.

 

Kakashi had taken care not to get any blood on himself. The scent would be completely indistinguishable from any other Anbu’s, their soaps and deodorants having been carefully manufactured with the aid of the Inuzuka to completely mask the individual’s scent, at least for a few hours after each application.

 

Sometimes even a second longer of being undetected could mean the difference between life and death.

 

A few hours was luxury.

 

It more than made up from having to keep the uniforms in scent-free containers.

 

They might regret putting such effort in after this result, though.

 

Betraying your own country should not be this. Fucking. Easy.

 

Even if it had betrayed itself first.

 

So Kakashi continues to do his job with his team mates, shifting body after body after body, and when they’ve finally run out - and fucking hell, Itachi was only _thirteen_ – he attends the debrief, uses the Anbu showers, changes into clean – hah – uniform, and finally goes back to his apartment.

 

Obito is already there, his mask on the table next to where he’s sitting cross legged, and looking so damn honestly happy and proud that he’s in danger of floating away from floor he’s sitting on.

 

And in that moment Kakashi can’t even see the scars he knows are there, the empty eye socket, or the broad width of an adult shinobi.

 

All he can see are the scrunched up eyes of a happy child, orange goggles pushed up above them and a wide tooth-filled grin below.

 

All he can see is that same kid’s grin when Rin smiled at him, when Sensei praised him, when he graduated, when he got promoted, when so many different events had transpired and it had never even seemed to occur to the boy that those chances at happiness might be fleeting.

 

Right now, all he can see is Obito, sitting in front of him.

 

Happy, and full of hope for the future.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the missing week!  
> I had a few niggles I still wasn't happy with, and had planned time to fix them, which would have been nice, but then I came down with a slightly horrific flu bug. It completely took me out for about a week and a half, and I was too ill to write, but too stubborn to post whilst knowing there were potentially fixable flaws :/  
> But here we now ^^;  
> As always, thank you so much to everybody who has taken the time to read, leave kudos and leave comments, it's always awesome to see, doubly so whilst ill ^^  
> Thanks again for reading, I hope everybody is still enjoying ^^


	11. Chapter 11

Kakashi has already got himself clean, doesn’t currently feel the aching pain of blood dripping from his hands in a way that necessitates another shower, and feels far too wired to attempt sleep even had he wanted to, so he takes the third option and silently moves into the kitchen area and starts cooking.

 

He hasn’t restocked in months, but there’s always food in his cupboards.

 

He’s expecting to hear a voice behind him start speaking, to praise his actions or mock them, to taunt him or encourage him, but the silence continues, uninterrupted except by the sounds of cutting and cooking, of the meal slowly coming together.

 

It isn’t until Kakashi sits down with one bowl in his hand and another slid across the table to his visitor that the silence in broken, first by their quiet “itadakimasu” - Obito’s a fraction behind, as if out of practice with eating etiquette - and then finally, finally, by Obito speaking.

 

“Itachi might be upset. I’m fairly sure this means that whatever deal the two of them had is over, and the brat probably had some sort of grand plan in the works.” A slight tone of amusement is noticeable in Obito’s voice, but the light happiness from his expression is also present still.

 

There’s nothing in there that Kakashi has an interest in responding to, so he doesn’t.

 

He keeps slowly eating mouthfuls of the fish, and keeps waiting, eye fixed on his own food.

 

Obito takes a few mouthfuls himself whilst waiting for Kakashi to speak, and when it becomes clear that his wait might take some time he continues talking, body angling forward slightly with what’s not quite impatience, but rather anticipation, expectation.

 

“So what’s your plan for the Hokage?”

 

It’s almost an understandable question from Obito’s point of view, really.

 

Kakashi has more than proven his tolerance for regicide, after all.

 

But Kakashi doesn’t really know how to explain to the other man that nowadays when he looks at the Hokage all he can see is a tired old man who’s been doing his job for too long, who wishes so much that the world could be a better place than it is.

 

An old man who wants to believe in that better world so strongly that he’s willing to blind himself to the state of the world as it really is.

 

Kakashi can only pity that old man, the flickering embers of hate never quite catching when all the oxygen needed is being used to fan a different fire.

 

In fact, the only thing he can think to say is a thought he’s been desperately ignoring for years.

 

It’s a horrible, niggling doubt that was so much easier to ignore before Obito brought Itachi into his apartment, before he revealed what the two of them had done.

 

Able to be ignored even as the thought burrowed and squirmed within him, another pain to add to the list.

 

He wants to be able to shut this doubt away again, to lock it up for good, to continue living his life in the way he’d been weak enough to do so before, but he knows he can’t, not this time.

 

He wants to be twelve again, foolish and arrogant and scum, but with his team still alive around him.

 

He wants to be four again, with his father’s arms ready to reach out to him should he need it.

 

He wants to just keep on eating quietly with his companion.

 

He wants this moment to stretch out, never interrupted by what he doesn’t want to say.

 

But he can’t.

 

Not this time.

 

So he starts speaking slowly, drawing up one word after another, each one bringing up further pain, and doesn’t raise his eye from his food.

 

“When the Kyuubi attacked, the Uchiha were an accepted part of Konoha. Not liked, per say, but accepted, tolerated, valued for what they brought to the village that they had helped to create. Shinobi might not have been willing to use their best jutsu in front of an Uchiha, but they were willing enough to work side by side them, sharing the weight of duty.

 

“But after the Kyuubi, things changed. They were viewed with suspicion, like a threat that had grown unnoticed within the village, one potentially in need of removal.

 

“And the Uchiha took offense.

 

“They wanted their position of respect and power back, they wanted to be viewed as important, and appreciated for their work.

 

“But nothing changed, not anything that they tried politically. After all, this was the clan monsters, one that had turned the beast known as the Kyuubi against their own village, just for the hell of it. Who would want to trust them?

 

“So the Uchiha went for the other option, instead.

 

“They planned a coup.

 

“And one lone member of the clan despaired, because he could see no end to this war that was about to start.

“Not until one was suggested to him.”

 

Kakashi pauses briefly to drink some water, not even to wet his throat, but just to delay the inevitable for one moment more.

 

Obito makes no sound, and Kakashi does not look up at him.

 

“It’s funny, though. The only one with the power to manipulate the Kyuubi would have had to be a sharingan user. And yet, no matter how hard Anbu searched, they could never find a single matured sharingan user without an alibi for the time of the Kyuubi’s appearance. They couldn’t even find an Uchiha without an alibi who _might_ have a sharingan strong enough to control a demon.

“Every single Uchiha who had even the slightest possibility of being able to do so had been proven innocent.

 

“So how could the Kyuubi have escaped?

 

“It’s a paradox.

 

“Unless somewhere there was an Uchiha who hadn’t had their alibi checked. One who had the ability to get past the wards without being seen, and who nobody would ever have come to suspect.

After all. Why would anybody suspect someone already dead?”

 

The silence feels stifling, as if the very room were about to produce a thunderstorm, and Kakashi wants to stop.

 

He wants to scratch the back of his head, to laugh it off as some strange flight of fancy and just continue onwards in the bliss of not-really-knowing-for-sure, but he can’t.

 

Every breath hurts, and he wants to stop, to lie down, to curl up against the warmth of the other and let loose the tears that he’s so desperately holding back.

 

But he keeps going.

 

He has to.

 

He’s had that choice taken away from him time after time after time, but right now he makes the choice himself.

 

A shinobi endures.

 

So that’s what he does.

 

He acknowledges the pain, accepts it, and endures it.

 

Finally he brings his eye up to meet Obito’s, the other man’s whole face stiff and blank, no sign of the happiness from earlier in the wary gaze of his eye.

 

He can’t procrastinate anymore, so he simply goes straight to the point, the air in his lungs feeling as thick as syrup as he drags in in to speak.

 

“Obito. Did you unleash the Kyuubi?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much to everybody who has read, left kudos or left a comment, seeing everybody's appreciation for this fic is wonderful ^^  
> Also, I am terribly entertained by how approving everybody was of killing Danzo  
> On a side note, I really hate writing speeches. It was necessary, and I really wanted to have it, but at the same time I slightly hated it for ages, and kept rewriting it so many times.  
> But anyhoo, thanks again ^^


	12. Chapter 12

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Edited 11/04/18
> 
> Mostly minor edits, details in the Author's note in chapter 1 ^^
> 
>  
> 
> XXX

 

 

 

It’s not even the entirety of the question he knows he should ask.

 

There are so many different questions, all wrapped up in the same answer.

 

Did you deliberately try to destroy Konoha?

 

Did you intentionally aim for an area away from the Uchiha to add to their persecution, to increase village tensions?

 

Did you tear the bijuu out of its jinchuuriki, knowing that it would lead to her death, to Kushina’s death?

 

Did you set it as a lure for Sensei, knowing he was the only one with a chance of going up against it, the one who would feel so sure that it was his duty to go against it, and that it would kill him in the attempt?

 

Did you try to kill Sensei?

 

Obito’s shoulders stiffen further at the direct question, his lone eye narrows slightly and his chin juts out a fraction further, edging into confrontational.

 

He doesn’t speak, though.

 

He doesn’t angrily leap to his own defence, shouting out about how he could never do something that would hurt his precious Konoha.

 

He doesn’t look shocked and upset, eye going wide and filling with tears as he hears what Kakashi is accusing him of.

 

He doesn’t even say anything to explain his own actions, to label the event as a mistake, or a necessary evil, or as what the fuck ever.

 

He just stares back at Kakashi.

 

Stiffly.

 

Evenly.

 

He might as well have been shouting his actions from the rooftops.

 

And Kakashi slumps, shoulders curling in and head tilting down so he doesn’t have to look at his friend any more.

 

He feels like his own chidori has thrust its way into his heart, but that at least would have been a quick death.

 

The pain would be sudden, and severe, but it would then be over.

 

This pain is not fading.

 

It’s twisting and tearing up his insides, slicing them and burning them, and leaving him alive to feel it.

 

He’s barely even aware of his own forehead hitting the table next to his bowl, muscles no longer even up to the tasking of keeping him upright.

 

It’s hard to breathe, but he forces himself to do so, to get in enough air to say one last sentence.

 

“I think you should go, Obito. Go now. Please.”

 

Three whole sentences, after all. Look at him go.

 

What a shinobi.

 

There’s a slight inhale from across him, the kind that precludes speech, and he finds himself interrupting before he can hear whatever the other man would have wanted to say.

 

“Please, Obito. Just go.”

 

Over the years Kakashi has begged Obito time and again, always for one thing and one thing only, and Obito has never listened.

 

But Obito listens now, to this.

 

There’s the sound of a body rising to its feet, footsteps travelling quietly across the apartment, and the door sliding open and then closed.

 

From a man who can vanish in silence in the blink of an eye, the noise is a fucking courtesy, knowing that Kakashi wants him gone, but won’t be able to bring himself to look to check.

 

It really fucking hurts.

 

He doesn’t even notice his hand travelling a familiar path until he feels the cool hilt of leather wrapped steel against his hand, and then throws it away from himself with an agonised cry.

 

He can’t even rely on old comforts any more. That’s been ripped from him too.

 

Instead he throws himself backwards, away from the table, until his back hits the wall and stops, sinking to the floor, and there he lowers his head to his knees as they dampen and start to drip, and he can’t pretend even to himself that he doesn’t desperately miss the warmth of the other man holding him whilst he cries.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So the eagle eyed of you might notice that this is now chapter 12 of 12 for this fic, and therefore the end, despite the length of the chapter.  
> But this is definitely not the end of this story! Actually, I'm not even to the point that started all of this fic for me in the first place, and I have already started the sequel ^^  
> However, I am going to be quite limited in my access to technology over the next few weeks, so I intend to have a few weeks before posting the start of the next in the series, just to ensure that we don't have any impromptu hiatus whilst it's going, so I am sorry for the upcoming wait.  
> But aside form all that, many, many thanks to everybody who has supported me with this fic!  
> The response has been absolutely amazing, especially considering this is my first fic on AO3, and I love all to bits of you who have taken the time to respond ^^  
> Sorry again for all the pain I have put these boys through, and I hope to see you all soon when I continue their suffering ^^


End file.
